milliways_bar | (no subject)

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More hot showers. More clean sheets. It's too much for a poor sinner like me to ask.

If it weren't for the dreams, sun-soaked, with shadows creeping in on the corners, I'd almost feel safe.

But dreams mean that I've been sleeping, and for sleep, I am grateful. I actually took a walk outside, feeling the clean, lean air blow through me, the air feeling almost like Europe, when I wandered that ancient and bloody land in my youth, gentle like a knife, the bittersweet November chill filling me with-- hope? fear? maybe both, impossible to say, some undefinied emotion, something without a name.

And when I push open the back door and I am hit with all this sound, all this light, all this life, and I smile a creaking sort of smile to myself, and think that maybe this is the closest thing to Heaven I'll ever see.

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Bernard sees the guy, not all that younger than him, yet light-years away, from his corner booth, and looks him over, momentarily distracted from his paperwork.

But upon closer inspection, Bernard still has the creeping remnants of his own swirling horror, not only on his arms, but up one cheek, at the other temple, on one eyelid and sweeping into the curve of an eyebrow.

And he's not one to judge.

He smiles, not unwelcoming.

One eyebrow goes up. The mouth quirks in a grin.

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Could say that." He sticks out a steady hand to shake. "Bernard Wrangle. Co-Head Barman."

"Groovy," Bernard deadpans, glancing at the empty seat opposite him in invitation. "New arrival?"

"Thought that was against the law in Texas," Bernard quips.

A sigh. "No, and I have no clue. What were you doing when you got in here?"

"It does that to people," Bernard replies. "I don't know what to tell you. If you didn't receive some kind of death blow before you got in, then you're probably just fine."

Bernard looks, too.

"Yeah. It is. It's not an easy place to love, but for those who choose to stay, we try to make it as comfortable as possible."

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